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08 February 2013

Interview with Michelle I. Brooks

Time is running out & the Dark that's been chasing Syd for many lifetimes has finally caught up with her.

Sydney
Roberdeau lost her parents as a young girl. Waiting for her life to
start and the freedom that will come with her eighteenth birthday, Syd
spends much of her time haunting the local cemetery. It is there,
stretched out among the dead, that she feels most alive, most at home.
Until one rainy night when Beau, Sarah and T.J. crash her ghostly
sanctuary, appearing out of nowhere, turning her already inside-out
world one degree past upside down.

Syd must now revisit past
lives, dressing in the bodies of her previous selves & bone
dressing. Her only chance to outrun the evil breathing down her neck is
to face her own worst nightmares and her strongest desires. But if she
can't stay out of trouble in this life, how can she possibly fix
mistakes from past lives? And just how many lives has she lived, loved
and lost? What is Syd exactly, and what will she risk for the life of a
man she doesn't remember, the man she spent a lifetime with, the man she
loves? Everything including her very own life?

Bone Dressing, the first in a series of seven books, will carry Syd and Beau on an adventure that transcends life itself.

1. How and why have
you started to write? Was there something or someone that gave you an impulse?

Hmmm, that’s something that has developed over the span of
my life. Early on I fell in love with Poe, Sheakespeare and Tolkien. Their
ability to weave together the lives of people that lived only within their own
imagination into a rich and captivating tapestry that I could float away on for
hours at a time was, and still is, exquisitely impressive. Since then, I’ve
eagerly ridden upon the magic carpets of hundreds of other authors. It would be
nice to think of someone like myself being as willingly swept away within the
pages of Bone Dressing.

2. Tell me something
about your series, Bone Dressing.

Does the name sound a little dark? Bone Dressing. Yes, of
course it does sound dark. But Bone Dressing is exactly that. Syd, the main
character, is definitely not a glitter and teddy bears kind of girl. She quite
simply dresses in the bones of her past lives to discover herself, to figure
herself out, to find out who she is, where she’s been, and how on earth to get
wherever it is she’s heading, where she needs to go in this life. Her last
life.

So, Bone Dressing is a series of seven books. It’s a “there
and back again” kind of story, only Syd’s “back again” takes her between
lifetimes, and will ultimately deliver her to an entirely new life, a new Syd,
one girl, but a collection of odd pieces of herself, pieces from lifetimes of
love, learning and loss, reshaped into something magnificent, something
miraculous, something uniquely, wonderfully perfectly imperfect. Something we
can all strive to be.

3. While you’re
writing, have you discovered a character that you were developing feelings of
love for? And was there a character that gave you headaches?

The truth is that I feel an intimate connection with all the
characters that live in the pages of Bone Dressing, the good and the bad.
Having said that, I can only suppose this must be a common side effect for creative
minds. Once you give birth to a being, whether they are two-dimensional or
three really makes very little difference in the depth of your feelings about
them. Perhaps the most defining points are that while the wonderful people in
my life that actually breathe give infinitely better hugs and I can talk to
them without anyone questioning my sanity for a single second, they are
transient beings, with a beginning and an ending … grave fodder, so to speak.
On the other hand, the people I create with a pen are really lousy at cuddling
and back rubs, but on the upside they all have the gift of immortality.

4. How have you done
your research for the series of novels?

Every way imaginable. I do loads of research online, and
spend a lot of time looking through travel books, historical records and
current events to develop a well-rounded sense of the sights, sounds, and
smells as well as the social, cultural, and political environment of each place
depicted in Bone Dressing. In addition, there are always maps of wherever Syd’s
at lying around my writing area for visual reference, which I layer with Google
Earth to get a better feel for a location I may not have visited before.Of course, whenever possible, I spend time
exploring the area she will be in person. However, all of my research must be
done in two steps, with one level focusing on the present, and one focusing on
the point in history that one of Syd’s past lives took place.

5. Is there a book
that inspired your writings?

I love to lose myself between the covers of a great book,
and I have many authors I absolutely adore. However, my inspiration for Bone
Dressing came and continues to come from within … from a dream I had late one
night about a certain girl named Syd whose loves and lives spilled through the
pages of my mind, permanently imprinting my heart with their intoxicating,
bittersweet essence.

6. In the end, would
you like to say some words to your fans from Romania?

Actually, yes … keep reading! One of Syd’s past lives in a
later book of the series will be set in Romania. Vezi tu de partea cealaltă a
unui mormânt (see you on the other side of the grave)!

Thank you very much Ms. Brooks for the
honor of having you on our blog today!